When engineers at CERN invented the touchscreen, they chose not to patent it. Yet Apple, Microsoft and Nokia are among the slew of tech firms who have chosen to patent aspects of the way software responds when humans touch or interact with touchscreens. But if Apple's recent experiences are any kind of harbinger, it looks like a strategy that's beginning to backfire.

This week the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a notice that it is likely to invalidate yet another important Apple patent - meaning that two of the three patents that led to the company winning a cool $1 billion in damages from Samsung of South Korea could be kaput. That would lend significant ammunition to Samsung in its ongoing appeal against the massive fine.

A USPTO notice in October had already tentatively revoked Apple's patent covering "rubber-banding", the onscreen bounce-back effect that iOS touchscreens display when a page is scrolled beyond its edge. And this week it has done likewise with the patent that covered the sensing of simultaneous touches that allow for touch-typing and pinch-to-zoom functionality.

Apple's $1 billion patent court victory over Android smartphone and tablet maker Samsung moved the markets this week, with the iPhone maker's shares up 2 per cent, while Samsung's plummeted 7.5 per cent and Android author Google was down 1.4 per cent. The Korea Times says the Korean technology giant is "staggering" from this "stomach punch" to its prospects.

If Apple's win holds up to appeal, there are going to be a lot more legal battles like these. Several of the patents at the heart of the Apple/Samsung case are not about novel engineering per se, but represent an emerging techno-battleground: that of user gestures and effects.

Samsung was found to have infringed three Apple patents in this arena (as well as three design patents), that cover (a) the ability to zoom into a picture or web page by double tapping a touchscreen; (b) the ability to sense multiple simultaneous touches on the screen, for instance using a pinching motion to zoom into a picture; and (c) the bounce-back effect, produced when scrolling a webpage, picture, or document beyond the edge of the page. Such features were introduced in Apple's iPhone in June 2007.

Students groaning under the weight of multiple textbooks can now swap their hefty tomes for an iPad - if they can afford one. Apple today launched a new range of interactive textbooks specifically designed for its tablets.

iBook Textbooks dump the paper-flipping effect of ebooks for a more app-like experience, offering images, videos and interactive diagrams alongside the text. Students can also highlight passages and make notes, then touch a button to have them transformed into study cards.

Siri, the new voice-controlled assistant software installed on the iPhone 4S, already sends emails, checks the weather and performs other Apple-sanctioned tasks, but now Pete Lamonica, a software developer in St. Louis, Missouri, has come up with a hack that lets him create custom commands.

His system lets you use Siri as normal, except that all commands pass through a proxy server. Apple's official Siri servers interpret voice commands as usual, but the proxy server intercepts the returning text, making it possible to create plugins that run custom commands. For example, Lamonica hooked up Siri to his wirelessly controlled thermostat, letting him ask for the current temperature or set a new one.

The loudspeaker design is based on Apple's iPod Shuffle (Image: Jonathan Banks/Rex Features)

Remember the first iteration of the diminutive iPod Shuffle, which attached like a tie pin to your clothing? Now Apple is patenting a similarly sized clip-on device - but rather than being a solid-state media player this one is a small piezoelectric loudspeaker for plugging into iPods, iPhones and iPads.

While a number of third party suppliers make clunkier add-on loudspeakers for iDevices, one aim of Apple's US patent application, which was filed today, is to provide an on-the-move sound source with an "aesthetically-pleasing appearance".

Yesterday's iPhone announcement was a disappointment for many Apple fans who were hoping for a more significant handset upgrade, though the company's new personal assistant program, Siri, likely won a few people back. What many may not have realised is that the original, more basic version of Siri had been available in the App Store for over 18 months - right up until Apple removed it during yesterday's announcement.

Those who have already downloaded the Siri app are also out of luck. Siri relies on external servers for its speech recognition and other functions, and these servers briefly went offline yesterday. Once they returned, users were greeted with a cheerful message warning them to upgrade: "I've been replaced! The new Siri is even smarter and better looking than me, and waiting for you on the iPhone 4S. I'll be leaving for home Oct 15th. Until then...how can I help you?"

It is clear why Apple has pulled Siri from the App Store - the assistant software is one of the few features that differentiates the new iPhone 4S from its predecessors and existing owners might be reluctant to upgrade if Siri were available on their current phones. It is also possible that the new version of Siri can only run on the iPhone 4S's new A5 processor - though that can't be the full explanation, as the iPad 2 uses the same processor yet can't use the app. Still, it is a very consumer-unfriendly move, especially for those who were already accustomed to having their own digital assistant.

In space, no-one can hear you scream, right? Everyone who knows some physics, or who's seen Alien, knows it. But is it always true? A smartphone app that's headed for low Earth orbit will soon tell all. Kind of.

Called Scream In Space, the app is one of four that have won a place on a super-cheap (£70,000) satellite called Strand-1 that aims to use an Android-based smartphone's accelerometers and GPS receivers as the heart of its guidance system - but which will also allow the phone's camera, speaker, mic and touchscreen display to run some interesting orbital apps. The phone, by the way, is a Google Nexus One.

After a competition run on Facebook, mission planners at the UK's Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) and the Surrey Space Centre today announced which apps will fly on the phone.

For those hoping for an iPhone 5, Apple's "Let's Talk iPhone" event today might have been a disappointment. But the consumer electronics firm did grace the world with the new iPhone 4S, an overhaul from the iPhone 4 that also came with some breakthrough software in the form of the personal assistant program, Siri.

On stage at the event senior vice president of iPhone software Scott Forstall asked his phone: "What's the weather like today?" And Siri responded with the forecast.